Wales, tonight
by analine
Summary: Sometimes it's all about perspective, Ianto figures. Set after S2 and Journey's End. Jack/Ianto. One-shot.


**Title:** Wales, tonight  
**Pairing/Characters:** Jack/Ianto  
**Warnings/Spoilers:** basic spoilers for Exit Wounds-set after S2 and Journey's End  
**Rating:** PG  
**Genre:** slice of life, I think  
**Word Count:** ~1,420  
**Summary:** Sometimes it's all about perspective, Ianto figures.  
**Notes:** Well, this started with the schmoop_bingo prompt _massage-foot rub_, but it's really not all that schmoopy. Kind of melancholy, but romantic, and... A little hopeful, I think. Plus, it involves Jack and Ianto on the couch watching the news. ;)

* * *

Ianto blinks, starting to alertness.

He knows he's been half-asleep for the past hour or so, ever since they walked into his flat, and collapsed onto the couch, really, but he wonders if he might have dozed off, just for a second. He glances over at Jack, who glances back, smiling a little from the other end of Ianto's couch.

Jack leans over and gives Ianto's foot an affectionate squeeze, and Ianto closes his eyes again.

The muted voices on the telly fade into the background-_Wales Tonight_, now. Jack always wants the news on, though Ianto can never figure out why, when they hear all these stories hours before they make the press anyway. Ianto stretches his legs a little, and feels Jack shift too, feels Jack's hands quietly pull his legs up onto his lap, feels those fingers start to press and knead against the bare skin of Ianto's toes.

It's a little weird, really, but then again, everything is weird-everything has been weird for a very, very long time, and so if Jack wants to give him a foot massage, if Jack Harkness wants to sit here on Ianto's couch, and tuck an afghan that Tosh had given him, back when... Well, when she was alive, a flat-warming gift, ages ago... If Jack wants to do all of this, no matter how weird it feels, Ianto will let him. Will, and has before-this isn't the first time.

He's starting to wonder if this is what old, married couples feel like, or even just married couples in general, old or not.

He should ask Gwen, Ianto thinks, as Jack's fingers rub smooth, comforting circles around the balls of his feet, his ankles.

Jack had insisted on this, on _them_, being like this. One night a week, barring an unavoidable emergency, the apocalypse, or too many weevils set about onto the streets of Cardiff, Jack would stay here, at Ianto's flat.

Usually they'd go out first, dinner, sometimes a movie, or a play, or, god forbid, the opera, which Ianto tolerated, like he tolerated most things, for Jack. Always for Jack.

For Jack, Ianto would allow himself to do what he'd never let anyone do before. This meant, among other things, touching his _feet_. Intimately. Because really, feet had never really done much for Ianto. Lisa used to ask him to rub hers, sometimes, after a particularly long afternoon spent shopping, and come to think of it, he'd obliged then, too, but he'd never asked her to return the favor.

Jack hadn't needed to be asked, of course, he'd just started doing it one night, after they'd come back from dinner, and after he'd checked in with Gwen at the hub, who'd assured them that the rift wasn't going to bring anything through that couldn't wait until morning.

"I like your feet," Jack started, after Ianto had pulled his legs in with, well, a bit of horror, probably. Ianto'd stopped him there though, not really caring to hear Jack's explanation. Then he'd sighed, and stretched his legs out again, deciding once again to trust that when Jack said something like "come on, I'm good at this," it was probably true.

And it was, as much as Ianto hated to admit it. Jack claimed to have gained excellent knowledge of reflexology over the years, said he learned something in Thailand back in the 30's and, well, whatever it was, it was good. Ianto never even knew he had tension in his feet until Jack's hands had gotten involved.

So, here they are. Friday night, just after 10:30, him and Jack, stretched out on the couch like two pensioners, under Tosh's afghan. Ianto's lips let out a small sigh, as the pads of Jack's fingers linger on what he's come to recognize as a particularly sensitive spot just under his left heel.

"You still awake?" Jack asks, fingers still moving, pressing hard into the soles of Ianto's feet now, though you would never guess it from the look of effortless calm on Jack's face.

Ianto can see the curl of a smile on Jack's lips as he cracks open one eye.

"If I say yes, do you promise not to stop?"

Jack laughs. "Ianto Jones, maybe I'll make a fetish man out of you after all."

Ianto rolls his eyes, then lets out a groan, as Jack proceeds to practically wrench his toes off, one by one.

"God, that feels good," Ianto says, despite himself.

"If I had a dollar for every time I've heard that."

"You wouldn't be able to do a damn thing with them in Cardiff, so I don't see why it matters," Ianto mutters, but he's smiling, he can't help it.

The telly flashes red-a fire, near the Swansea city centre, a whole city block, up in flames. That'd been earlier today, though, of course. Nothing to do with them, but... They kept abreast of all of it, just in case.

A year ago, Ianto would have found it depressing, all that pain and suffering, night after night, day after day. The rift was just the heart of it, not _all_ of it-there were plenty of horrible things that went on in this city every day that Torchwood couldn't do a thing about, but... Well, as long as the earth stayed in the solar system, and millions of people weren't slaughtered, and Jack hadn't gone missing, well...

It's all about perspective, Ianto figures.

He knows that's how it is for Jack, and if that's how it is for Jack, well... That's how it'd be for him too. Today had been a good day, all things considered.

And now they're here, and that's good too.

Ianto tilts his head toward Jack, taking in his profile, the line of his jaw, the way his hair always seems to lay properly against the curve of his ear, no matter what.

Ianto suspects that the real reason Jack likes to come here so much these days, why he insists on having at least one night a week set aside for this, for them, is, well... It's Jack's way of keeping perspective, maybe. And Ianto understands.

He doesn't like being in the hub after hours that much anymore either. It's so much quieter, without the hum of Tosh's computer programs buzzing through the mainframe-even after she'd leave for home, she had the system running full force, most nights. And the autopsy bay... At night it seems like a gaping hole in the middle of the hub's heart, empty, hollow, cold.

"Do you think Gwen's okay?" Jack's voice startles Ianto out of his thoughts.

Gwen. They left Gwen alone a lot these days, and Ianto knows Jack feels guilty about it, like he's abandoning her, even though he'd never say that out loud. But Ianto also knows that Gwen understands. She has Rhys, and because of that, Ianto knows she would never deny him-_them_-this, if she could help it. It's the closest thing to a normal relationship that either of them can manage, and... Gwen understands how much they need it.

"She'd call if she wasn't," Ianto tells Jack, reassuring him with a nod.

"Would she?"

"Yeah," Ianto says quietly, swallowing past the lump in his throat, thinking of Gwen in the hub, that cavernous space swallowing her up, all those ghosts. "She would, I've... talked to her. She understands."

Surprise flashes across Jack's face for a moment.

"You don't have to do everything yourself, you know," Ianto explains, trying not to sound defensive. "What else am I here for, then."

Jack's hands had stopped moving, but they start again now, squeezing Ianto's feet, then his ankles, then up to his knees, where Jack stops, leaning forward, his eyes dark.

"Come here," he says, and of course, Ianto does.

Jack presses his lips to Ianto's, and it's like coming home, for both of them.

Like setting foot on deck in the middle of a storm on the last ship in the last harbor at the edge of the world, as the notes of that familiar theme blur into the flickering darkness, and the programme goes to commercial. 


End file.
